A drift boat off Fort Lauderdale. An auger through Lapland ice.
What a half day on the water actually costs, which boats hand you a rod and which expect you to bring one, and who cooks the catch when you get back in. Reviews of fishing trips you can book, warm water and frozen.
Four boats that decide what kind of fishing trip you want.
An Arctic fjord, a frozen lake, a reef half-day and a private skiff in Alaska. What each one costs and what the people who fished it said.
01The fjord dayArctic Fjord Cruise & Fishing ExperienceOut of Tromso into open water, rods handed out on deck and the mountains standing over the whole thing.
02The frozen lakeSnowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with LunchSnowmobile out, drill the hole, sit over it. Lunch cooked on a fire in the trees while you wait for the float to drop.
03The reef half-dayKey West Half-Day Fishing CharterA Keys charter that gets you fish on the first drift. The cheapest way to catch something you can photograph.
04The private boatPrivate Fishing Charter in KetchikanKetchikan salmon and halibut with the boat to yourselves. The trip the rest of the week gets planned around.
Six countries that fish nothing like each other.
Florida inlets and Alaskan inlets, a frozen lake an hour from Santa Claus, marlin off Cabo, net casting from a round basket boat on the Thu Bon. Pick the water first and the boat second.
Four ways to fish America, and what each one costs to board.
More of this site is American water than anything else: party boats out of Florida inlets, salmon rivers in Alaska, flats skiffs in Texas bays. They are different days out at very different prices.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Drift Fishing Trip off the Coast of Fort Lauderdale
Shared chartersSix to twelve rods on a party boat, tackle handed to you.
Offshore daysPast the reef line for mahi, kingfish and whatever else is running.
Lakes and riversBass at first light, salmon runs, ice huts on the Chena.
Flats and baysShallow water, light tackle, redfish and trout within sight of land.
All 136 American fishing trips →
The fishing trips more travellers take than any other.
Every fishing trip we have reviewed →Boats that run most days of the season and still fill. What earns each of them the slot, and what it costs to sit on one.
1
Arctic Fjord Cruise & Fishing Experience
Spend five hours aboard a warm Polar Adventures boat with guides such as Ken, Christina, Carolina, or Kristina. Cruise past Ryøya and Ramfjorden, stop to fish for cod and haddock, watch for eagles, foxes, dolphins, and moose, then eat fresh fish soup with flatbread. Thermal suits, hot drinks, snacks, and an English-speaking crew are included.
From · $152
Read our review →
2
Cooking Class Hoi An:Local Market, Basket Boat, Fishing & Cooking
from $28
3
Snowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with Lunch
from $222
4
Makarounas Fishing Boat Trip with swimming stop and BBQ on board
from $78
5
Drift Fishing Trip off the Coast of Fort Lauderdale
from $85
6
Lofoten Fishing Boat Cruise
from $135
7
Half-Day Fishing Trip in Fort Lauderdale
from $73
8
Fishing Sea Safari
from $223
Charter, party boat or private hire: the decision that sets the price.
A seat on a shared boat starts around eighty dollars. The same water on your own hull runs into the hundreds and the fish are no more obliging. The difference is space, the skipper's attention and how far out you go.
Lapland fishes best when the lake has a foot of ice on it.
From January the lakes around Rovaniemi and Levi carry snowmobiles. A guide augers a hole, hands you a short rod and lights a fire in the trees, and the afternoon goes by on perch and char. Tromso does the same thing afloat, chasing cod through four hours of blue winter light.
Every ice fishing trip →What a morning's fishing costs, from a shared rail to a private deck.
Every priced trip on the site, grouped by what one seat costs. Plenty of good fishing sits under the price of dinner.
Night squid off Phu Quoc, bay trips, market-and-net mornings in Vietnam and Thailand.
The standard half-day: Florida drift boats, Greek caiques with a swim stop, Arctic fjord cruises.
Full days offshore, Alaskan salmon charters and the private hulls with the boat to yourselves.
- 1Arctic Fjord Cruise & Fishing Experiencefrom $152
- 2Snowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with Lunchfrom $222
- 3Fishing Sea Safarifrom $223
Three kinds of fishing you cannot do anywhere else.
Half-day reef charters run off any warm coast on earth. A hole drilled through a Finnish lake, a Ketchikan king salmon and a round Vietnamese basket boat do not travel.
Fishing through the ice
By midwinter the lakes around Rovaniemi carry half a metre of ice and a guide takes an auger to it. The holes are the width of a dinner plate, the rods are barely longer than your forearm, and the fish underneath are perch, pike and arctic char. It is a sitting sport: a reindeer skin, a fire in the birch scrub and a long quiet wait with the sun low the whole time.
- 1Snowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 879 reviews
- 2Fairbanks Ice Fishing Expedition in a Heated Cabin with Fish Cookout★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 461 reviews
- 3Ice Fishing Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 379 reviews
Ketchikan salmon and halibut
Ketchikan sits where five salmon runs come past the door, and the boats fish both salmon on the troll and halibut on the bottom in the same trip. Halibut are hauled up from a hundred metres and weigh what a child weighs. The processors at the dock will fillet, freeze and ship what you keep, which is why so many charters end at a counter rather than a kitchen.
- 1Private Fishing Charter in Ketchikan★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 367 reviews
- 2Ketchikan salmon and halibut fishing charter★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 363 reviews
- 3Ketchikan Alaska Fishing and Wilderness Dining★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 207 reviews
Basket boats and cast nets
The round coracle you see on the water at Hoi An is a thung chai, woven from bamboo and sealed with resin, and it spins unless you know the single-oar trick. Fishermen work the coconut palms at the river mouth with a cast net thrown flat over the water. The trips that include it usually end in a kitchen, cooking whatever came up in the net.
- 1Cooking Class Hoi An:Local Market, Basket Boat, Fishing & Cooking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,660 reviews
- 2Hoi An Basket Boat Tour ( basket boat, visit water coconut forest, fishing crab)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 187 reviews
- 3HoiAn:Making Lantern & Cooking Class-BasketBoat Ride,Crab fishing★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 162 reviews
Four fishing trips that will not wait for you to land.
Most boats can be arranged the night before from a bar near the harbour. These four run on ice, on salmon runs and on cruise-ship timetables, none of which care when your flight gets in.
- 01Ice Fishing ExperienceThe lake has to carry a snowmobile, which it does from January to April. Outside that window there is no ice to drill.
- 02Ketchikan salmon and halibut fishing charterAlaskan charters run June to August and the good skippers are booked by the cruise ships months out.
- 03Lofoten Fishing Boat CruiseWinter cod sit off Lofoten for a few weeks either side of February, and the daylight closes the window further.
- 04Private Fishing Trip “All Inclusive” in Cabo San Lucas, MexicoMarlin season fills the Cabo fleet from summer into autumn, and tournament weeks take the boats out of circulation entirely.
Licences, seasons and who is allowed to keep the fish.
Fishing is the one activity where the small print decides the day. Most charters carry a boat licence that covers you; rivers and lakes in the States often do not. Ice needs a cold winter, salmon runs need the right month, and plenty of boats are catch and release whatever the photos suggest. The listings say which is which.
Fishing runs on a calendar. Here is roughly whose.
Rovaniemi
Tromso
Cabo
Ketchikan
Hoi AnBy country — where the boats are
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Siracusa: Ortigia +sea caves +fishing experience
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